


Fate vs Freewill

by Lahul_Morgan3



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Heartbreak, Nordic Setting, Other, Possible Future Relationship, Redemption, Sorry if my speech patterns make no sense, Unreliable Narrator, You should hear my talk, even worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 15:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lahul_Morgan3/pseuds/Lahul_Morgan3
Summary: Please tell me if I should continue with the series“Because I have heard what she says in her nightmares and her dreams. I see the truth in her eyes” She said glancing up at me through the bangs hanging in her freckled face. Almost attractively and I suddenly understood why Mother had kept her lock up. If she let this girl go out into this world, she would have to learn to defend herself immediately and might even enjoy the power she has. I grinned, an idea coming to my mind than. I couldn’t wait.“And yours.”My smile melted with my foot falls. Not her’s. She walked on and forced me to catch up. When I did, she re-threaded her fingers through mine and smiled so warmly that I felt like ice in a fire. Her smile turned dangerous. She looked straight ahead and up the mountain.“Come Brother. Let us go wake mother together one more time.”Maybe I didn’t have so much work to do after all.





	Fate vs Freewill

Once there was a man. His name was Akder, which means for-bearer of light He was the son of the great good Odin. He had the magic of for-sight like his father. But just as it was with his father, his sight was never without cost. They came in different ways most often, but the most common was death. See, no one believed that Akder was really the All-father’s son. Not even his mother anymore. He had a slim, slender figure, made more for running and archery than hand to hand combat or brute strength. He had wild, curly brown hair and beep brown eyes. He was unable for someone of his village. He was bullied by the other boys and girls and preferred to read over sparing, yet he still knew how. And when his sight stoll him for it’s brief flits, he always saw the death of a person. He would try to warn them, but they never believed him. So he took to interfering himself. Thankfully, he was a very smart boy and could interfere to the point of saving the very people that made him so miserable without them ever realizing.

 

Life for Akder went on this way until well into his adult life. Until one quiet night in the village in spring just like any other, a young woman came walking out of the fields on his homestead. She wore simple clothes, full of holes and rubbed-in mud. She carried with her sled and on it, everything she owned, including her bitch. She knocked on his family’s door and asked for shelter, claiming guest rights.  
They family was happy to oblige her and in the mor, asked from where she had come. She told them of her own village, far to the south, toward the sunrise. She told them that she had packed all she had one night and set out into the world the next day to find what she might. Akder’s mortal father asked the young woman if one of these things might be a husband and she confessed that she was smitten with Akder and he in return, her.  
So, the two were wed and began their journey to find another village to live their lives from then on. They lived well with one another and Saga-Runa’s bitch took well to Akder’s hound. Travel was long and difficult, but after many moons, Saga-Runa, meaning the secret tradition’s tale, spotted a little village nestled by some mountains. They found an unclaimed flat and started to build a home. They befriend the villagers and farmed. They raised their herds and kept a happy, peaceful life for many moons. Until, one night, Akder woke in the night, sobbing and screaming.

After that, Akder was litless and nervousness. He suddenly mistrusted all his friends and everyone in the village. He wouldn’t let Saga-Runa work in the fields, tend the herds or even do simple house chores. He insisted that she was pregnant, but when the moon began to wain, Saga-Runa proved to be still without child. For reasons no one understood, this calmed Akder to unbelievable extents, life went back to the normal for them and people began to forget. But then, again, Akder woke screaming. And this time, Saga-Runa could not tell him that this dream he had was wrong. For this time, she was pregnant. Akder’s manic behavior returned and escalated to him locking her in their home to prevent her from harm. Saga-Runa decided that this could not go on and so that night, she drugged his ale and chained him to the house.  
When Akder awoke, Saga-Runa told him that she was going to continue to work and tend the animals. She asked him again what it was that had done this to him, and his only response was that if she was to go to the village, she would surely die. After a long time between them, Saga-Runa searching her husband for something, Akder sure that he would be unable to save yet another, she let out a breath and rested her hand upon his cheek, smiled and said to him,

“If there is any anyone that wishes me harm, I know that you will kill them if I do not manage first. I do not fear. Nor should you, my love. You must stop this.”

Akder thought her words over carefully and finally said that she was to go nowhere without him until the children were born. To this she agreed and life once more mellowed for them.

 

Until Saga-Runa woke to a quiet, almost not-there, rustling. She looked over to where Akder had been and found him gone. Un-explainable dread crept up her throat and choked out her air for a moment as she ripped the furs she slept beneath from her and ran after her husband. She finally found him atop the mountain that they lived beneath and called to him to stop. Akder turned and Saga-Runa was scared to see that he had been crying. She beseech him to explain to her what je was doing and the cause of such behavior. Akder’s eyes weld with fresh tears and he told her that he saw her death. She laughed and Akder’s tears increased; Once again, he was not believed. Saga-Runa tried to tell him that whatever he saw, they would fight together. That just because he saw it does not mean it must happen or happen the way he saw it, but Akder just shook his head and told her she was wrong. There talk escalated to yells, to shouts, to weapons. They fought savagely, to the full extent of their extensive abilities, wounding each other time and time over with both blades of steel and words alike. As they fought, they forgot about everything except their hatred and rage. Akder only wanted someone to believe him and to save his wife and unborn child and Saga-Runa wanted her husband to see that his sight could be wrong and to come home with her back to bed. But neither would yield to the other. So they fought on and on, slashing and stabbing with axes and swords and flinging words like arrows. Akder finally managed to wear Saga-Runa down to tiredness and chose this time to deal the killing blow.

“Every moment I have spent with you has been a mistake! One I wish I had never made! Our child is a mistake! One I won’t make!”

And with these words, he sprang at her, his sword glinting like a flower in the ocean, silver and red, aimed right for her head. Her eyes widened as she realized in a split second that he wasn’t try to get passed her to ran away any more, no he was going to kill her. She was tired and very pregnant, but still light on her feet and a warrior. She raised the simple ax they kept by the door of wood and got ready to bring it into his arm, when he suddenly dropped down to her legs. She shifted her weight on into the back of her pelvis, making it heaver, lowering her without losing her stance. Ax ready, Akder and his sword come closer. She almost didn’t see it. Akder’s sword moved. It was pointing up now. Right into her belly heavy with child. She let out a scream and threw herself to the left, catching the blade directly across the heart, cutting deep. Later, she would say that she does not remember what happened after that. Only that she tried to kill her husband for real after that moment until neither of them could hardly stand. After telling Akder that if he left now, she would never have him back. Nor would she ever tell their child about him. He would be walking away forever and she would never honor his body in his death. Akder looked pained in that moment, conflicted and she let herself hope that he was going to come home. But then that moment passed and he was gone. Forever. She still lives there, in their house, waiting for her child to be born. Soon, I will have to go help her birth them into this world where they will not have a father and only half a mother.

 

They were born the night before the full moon. The littlest girl first. Her brother last. She loved her children. But in her fever, she thought that Akder had come back to hold her and raise their children. When she heard that she had a boy, her fever lifted slightly, but not enough for her to remember fully. All she saw was her lover there one moment and disappeared the next. She screamed and cried for him to come back. She thrashed around, almost squashing her daughter. When I showed her son, she calmed and said that he looked just like his father. Tears began to fall unbidden as she remembered her promise to never harbor another with his face again. To her credit, she didn’t cry once, nor scream or cling. She simply handed the just born, hardly named boy, her only son to me and told me to give him to his father. I could not refuse her. It was my duty to obey her now, in this moment. I found a man at the docks that I trusted and gave him all the information he needed to find Akder to return his son to him as I promised. I never saw that boy again.

 

“Mommy! Mommy, look at me!!” My head snaps up and I feel fear rising. I gasped. She was atop a goat riding it like a horse! Not that she couldn’t, she was certainly small enough. But she could fall or get thrown or fall off. She could do any number of things!  
“Saslevi! Get down from there! Now!”  
She pouted but slid down. I know that I baby her and am too protective, but she’s all I have. How could I not?

 

“Who are you?”

“I am a merchant traveler. And you?”

“I am Saslevi, daughter of Saga-Runa. I live on the flat under that mountain.” She said, pointing. I turn my shoulders and craned my neck a bit to the right, looked and nodded, satisfied. Secluded. Far from the village. By the time they hear her, she’ll be dead and I’ll be gone. I hear my sister, Saslevi let out a breath beside me. I frown and look back at her.

“No! I like your smile. Please do it again.” She cried hastily grabbing at my arm. She pouted her lips and her head went forward, closer to my chest. Something about her made me. I don’t know what, but being in her presence, seeing her talk to me like this made me smile again. She smiled back and slipped her hand into mine. We stayed that way for a small time before she began to pull me toward the mountain she had pointed to in the distance.

“Where are you from?”

I ponder for a moment, her question.

“I am from nowhere really. At the moment of my birth, my mother sent me away and my father did not want me. I was raised by traveling merchants who never stayed in a place longer than a few moons.”  
Beside me, Saslevi gasped and I looked down to see reddened eyes shining with sympathy for me. Most people, all people, I would take a finger from for such an unwanted thing, but somehow, I let her continue.

“That must have been terrible! I’m so sorry!”

“Why is it terrible? I never had a duty to make a father proud or a the burden of a loving mother or having to care for younger siblings. I got to see the world my whole life. I learned from the greatest how to fight and lie and survive. I learned that kings are pointless and liars. All of them. I have had a great life. And never once have I wanted any kind of family.”

She was silent and I thought perhaps I have been too hard too fast. I needed her to take me to Mother. Not leave me halfway there, to run home in tears and tell Mother of me. She would surely run in that instance. I frowned again. No. It was more than just that. I didn’t want her to run away and leave me behind.

Without turning her head she whispered softly, “This is the first time I’ve been off the mountain.”

My neck nearly snapped with how fast I turned it to look at her. She smile a sad, pitying smile. But this time, she was pitying herself. I didn’t like it any more than the one for me.

“My mother lost her husband before I was born and she had to send my brother away to protect him, so I’m all she has left. She’s really sad about it, so I don’t get to do much ever.”

She must have seen the fury boiling hot in my eyes as she did not continue, just stared at me. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. That must have been torture. To get to watch the world with such a perfect view and have to be with someone who doesn’t love you all your time.”

“She does love me.”

I look at her unconvinced.

“She does.” Saslevi insists. “She just loves me too much. And she loves her husband and my brother too much too. It made her mad and happy at the same time, so she’s just. .just. . . “ She seemed to struggle to find the right words. I shook my head, not understanding.

“How do you know that?”

She smiled. She may have never had a conversation more complicated than pleasantries, but she certainly wasn’t getting tripped up by me at all.

“Because I have heard what she says in her nightmares and her dreams. I see the truth in her eyes” She said glancing up at me through the bangs hanging in her freckled face. Almost attractively and I suddenly understood why Mother had kept her lock up. If she let this girl go out into this world, she would have to learn to defend herself immediately and might even enjoy the power she has. I grinned, an idea coming to my mind than. I couldn’t wait.

“And yours.”

My smile melted with my foot falls. Not her’s. She walked on and forced me to catch up. When I did, she re-threaded her fingers through mine and smiled so warmly that I felt like ice in a fire. Her smile turned dangerous. She looked straight ahead and up the mountain.

“Come Brother. Let us go wake mother together one more time.”

Maybe I didn’t have so much work to do after all.

 

“Why?” I ask as we stand over what was once our mother. She had cried. Not because we were going to kill her but because she had seen me. Because she said that she was proud of the young man I had become. I smiled a small, almost expressionless smile. I wonder if this death is what Father saw?  
“To bad I’ll never get to ask him.”

“What?”

I startled, having almost forgetting that she was there on the floor.

“Nothing. I was just referring to Father.” Saslevi tilted her head and raised her chin, eyebrows creasing.  
“He is dead. He was murdered by fire three summers ago.”

Saslevi seemed to contemplate this. Her shoulders finally heaved a sigh and squared themselves.

 

“I suppose that is for best. Mother loved us. That much was evident. Father. .” Saslevi smiled too but didn’t move from her place on the floor, holding Mother’s head in her lap. I understood. We had no way of knowing if Father loved us or not. For all the things we knew, he only wanted to save Mother’s life. He, we would not have had mercy for as we did for Mother. I realized she never answered my question.

“Why?”

“Because I knew who you were. And what you were here to do. I knew that you would secede weather I helped you or not. But I was not sure that you would let me live if I warned her of your presence and I intend to do just that. Live. For the rest of natural life, I will travel with you and see the whole world. Everything and everyone in it will be mine to play with as I like. I will feel everything. I won’t be left on a mountain anymore.” Her eyes hissed lowly, as much as her straightened posture. Something about her made me smile. I understood. I paused and held out my arm, fingers reaching.

“I will never leave you alone on this or any mountain to watch the world and in return, you will never leave my side, Sister.”

Saslevi considered my arm. I could see the thoughts swirling in her eyes so like mine, so like our mother’s and her nose like a pig’s, wrinkling and straightening with the different options. Her smile grew and she grasped my forearm with her hand, her finger barely making half way around. Her other stayed lightly tangled in Mother’s cold hair. Saslevi’s arm was so short, just like the rest of her, that my hand was on her slim bicep. I gave it a gentle, constricting squeeze. Hmm, we'd work on that later. Together, standing in a burning home of death and love, feeling our way into each other's hearts through our eyes, we smiled together over the body the the only woman who had loved us and jerked our intertwined arms once.


End file.
